James Pethokoukis

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Why should Tim Geithner be so confident that America will “never” lose its AAA credit rating? The White House doesn’t currently have a long-term plan to stanch America’s fiscal hemorrhaging. Hoping and wishing for a successful deficit commission does not make a plan. The Treasury secretary’s statement sounds like one of those perfunctory defenses of the dollar.

Even before the U.S. capital was buried under three feet of snow in a matter of days, Washington was frozen solid. Democratic bumbling and Republican obstructionism had sapped legislative momentum from key reforms in finance as well as healthcare and energy. That gridlocked state of affairs is unlikely to change even after Snowmageddon blows into history and the federal government reopens its shuttered offices.